China in 2005

9,572,900 sq km (3,696,100 sq mi), including Tibet and excluding Taiwan and the special autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau

Population

(2005 est., excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau): 1,304,369,000

Capital:

Beijing

Chief of state:

President Hu Jintao

Head of government:

Premier Wen Jiabao

Domestic Politics

Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao consolidated his power in 2005 through a series of political maneuvers and policies. Under Hu’s leadership, the Communist Party of China (CPC) launched a campaign early in the year to “preserve the vanguard character” of the party. A program was undertaken to engage all of the CPC’s 69 million members in six months of workshops and evaluations. By midyear some 14 million CPC members had gone through this process aimed at strengthening their beliefs and commitment to the party.

Hu also continued to wage a high-profile campaign against institutional corruption, which many feared had begun to erode governmental authority. A spate of financial scandals led to a crackdown on corruption in banking and other industries. Zhang Enzhao, president of China Construction Bank—one of the leading state-owned commercial banks in China—resigned in March over allegations that he had taken bribes from an American contractor. He was the latest of four high-ranking banking officials who had been removed from their posts. The China Banking Regulatory Commission concluded its investigation of the four major state-run banks, the “Big Four,” and claimed to have saved $61 million from being lost to fraud. One branch manager of the Bank of China had embezzled about $102 million from several bank accounts before fleeing abroad. Among government officials arrested or sentenced for corruption during the year were the deputy governor of Sichuan province, the deputy party secretary of Shanxi province, the transportation bureau chiefs in Henan, Heilongjiang, and Yunnan provinces, and the deputy mayor of Suzhou. Quite a few others who lost their jobs over corruption charges had been promoted by Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin. These included Zhang Enzhao, Lanzhou’s Mayor Zhang Zhiyin, and Li Yizhen, the deputy party secretary of Shenzhen. China also took steps in 2005 to join the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, an intergovernmental body established to counter the manipulation of financial systems by criminals.

In a departure from the previous administration, the government began to take active measures to ease rural poverty. The widening wealth gap in Chinese society had prompted social protests and distrust in government. The Gini coefficient (a measure of income distribution in a society by which 0 = perfect equality and 1 = perfect inequality) in China had already exceeded the 0.4 threshold—widely viewed as an indicator of potential serious social disruption and instability. While the country’s economy had been on the fast track in recent years, a significant portion of its rural population had not been lifted from poverty. Toward this end the People’s National Congress in March moved to eliminate most of the basic agricultural taxes imposed on rural families and to increase agricultural subsidies for grain production. Agricultural reforms, however, fell short of granting peasants greater control over their land.

The government also kept a vigilant eye on public health issues during the year. It pledged to control the spread of AIDS and took aggressive measures to curb the threat posed by avian influenza (bird flu), including a plan to vaccinate all 14 billion of its poultry. The drastic move was intended to impede the spread of avian influenza and hopefully reduce human exposure to the virus. The world’s largest poultry-producing nation, China had by year’s end reported at least 30 outbreaks of bird flu in poultry in 2005 and at least three cases of bird-to-human infections, two of which resulted in death. Other antiflu measures taken by the government included the establishment of warning networks across the country and the stockpiling of antiviral drugs and other emergency supplies.

One interesting phenomenon that had developed in China in the early 21st century was the rapidly increasing number of Chinese returning from abroad. Most of the estimated 200,000 Chinese who had returned in recent years had obtained academic degrees or concluded short-term academic training outside the country. Some of these had begun to assume prominent government and business positions in China. Among a long list of notable returnees were the People’s Bank of China governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, and Education Minister Zhou Ji from the U.S.; the Chinese Academy of Sciences president, Lu Yongxiang, from Germany; and Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanhua from Sweden. Three foreign affairs vice ministers, Yang Jiechi, Zhang Yesui, and Zhou Wenzhong, had also returned from the U.K. These officials, all of whom were young and poised to take up challenges, were expected to have a broader worldview and greater practical knowledge of the West as well as to be generally more open to reform than the previous generation of leaders.

The Economy

China’s economy continued to grow impressively, at 9.4% in the first quarter of 2005 and at more than 9% overall for the third consecutive year. There were still no ready answers, however, to the long-term energy shortage that China faced. As economic growth greatly boosted demand for electricity, the country experienced a third straight year of crippling power blackouts. The State Electricity Regulatory Commission reported a 25,000-MW shortfall during the summer, when electricity consumption typically peaked—though this was a marginal improvement over the 30,000-MW shortfall experienced the previous summer. Forecasts also indicated that China’s demand for petroleum could rise 8% every year for the next quarter of a century. Although China accelerated oil and gas production in Xingjiang and other areas—and although PetroChina planned a $3.3 billion refinery expansion—close to half of the country’s oil consumption continued to be met by imports.

China searched for energy resources from East Africa to Central and Southeast Asia. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) signed a $300 million deal to develop natural gas resources in Saudi Arabia, near the huge Ghawar oil and gas field in the eastern region of the country. China also concluded a $70 billion deal with Iran to buy 250 million tons of natural gas over 30 years. China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) purchased the Iranian subsidiary of Sheer Energy of Canada for $121 million, which gave CNPC a 49% stake in the Masjed Soleyman oil field. It also purchased PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian-owned company, for $4 billion. President Hu himself traveled to Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines on missions that were focused largely on securing energy supplies. China provided $6 billion to Russia in hopes of securing oil, and in May it signed a $600 million agreement on energy cooperation with Uzbekistan.

After much speculation on the outside and preparation on the inside, the central bank made two significant currency reforms. One was to enlarge the span of currency fluctuation and allow the yuan to appreciate by more than 2%. The other was to adopt a new formula to valuate the yuan against a basket of foreign currencies instead of just the U.S. dollar. These foreign currencies included the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, and the South Korean won. The currencies of Singapore, Britain, Malaysia, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Thailand were also considered in setting the yuan’s foreign exchange rate. As a result, the yuan was revaluated on July 21 to 8.11 per dollar from a long-standing trading point of 8.278 per dollar. The revaluation was preceded by a 20-minute floating of the yuan on April 29 and by Hong Kong’s loosening its currency peg on May 19. China hitherto had had no experience of a floating yuan. Although the central bank might broaden the span of currency fluctuation in the future, currency liberalization was not on its reform agenda.

In addition to these significant currency changes, China pressed ahead with reforms of its troubled banking system and markedly opened the door to foreign investment in its financial institutions. State-run banks were encouraged to list their shares abroad. Bank of Communications became the second Chinese bank—following the Bank of China—to list its operations on the Hong Kong exchange market. Bank of America acquired a 9% stake in the country’s third largest lender, China Construction Bank. Dutch bank ING Group and British bank HSBC bought a 19.9% stake and a 20% stake, respectively, in the Bank of Beijing. An investor group led by the Royal Bank of Scotland and Merrill Lynch agreed to pay $3.1 billion to acquire a 10% stake in the Bank of China. American Express and a group of investors led by Goldman Sachs and Allianz Group signed a $3 billion deal to purchase a stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. General Electric bought a 7% stake in Shenzhen Development Bank for $100 million, and Citigroup planned to raise its stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to 20%.

China continued to reform its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by planning to close down more than 2,000 debt-ridden SOEs in the next four years and transferring a limited number of state-held shares to the private market. In early May the government picked 4 companies for the pilot project of selling off state-held shares and then expanded that to 42 additional companies, including some of the country’s largest. The number of private companies in China had increased tremendously since 1993, growing by an annual rate of 24% on average. In 2004 there were more than three million private companies in the country employing some 47 million workers.

Special Administrative Regions and Tibet

Macau’s gaming industry continued to see explosive growth. Building upon his previous year’s profits, gaming tycoon Stanley Ho, who controlled 15 of Macau’s 17 casinos, planned to expand his operation by as much as 30%. Gaming revenue in Macau was forecast to rise 20% over the next four years as banks rushed to finance additional casino projects. Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers led the new round of financing. At least one project was expected to run up to $2.5 billion in loans and bond sales.

Hong Kong democracy advocate Martin Lee continued his calls for the Chinese government to set a timetable for full democracy in the special administrative region. Lee voiced his concerns during trips to Europe and to the U.S., where he had a closed-door meeting in November with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He warned the secretary of state that “democracy is limping” in Hong Kong and that “we are not making any headway at all.” According to her spokesman, Rice told Lee that while the U.S. supported democracy and universal suffrage for Hong Kong, it would be up to the people of Hong Kong to “determine the pace and scope of political reform in accordance with the Basic Law.”

In August the Chinese government held celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region. While members of a government delegation sent to Lhasa for a parade in the regional capital trumpeted the “tremendous changes” that had taken place in Tibet under Chinese rule, human rights activists decried policies in the region and labeled the celebrations a “major propaganda opportunity” for the government.

Foreign Relations

China strengthened regional cooperation (seeSidebar) and expanded its economic diplomacy during the year. The second Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit was held in Kunming on July 4–5, with government leaders from China, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam participating. China agreed to lend Vietnam more than $1 billion for a series of projects. China promoted GMS cooperation as a first step toward building a China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. President Hu visited Indonesia and signed nine agreements on April 25 to establish a “strategic partnership” and engage in more trade, investment, and maritime cooperation. During another year of active diplomacy, Hu also paid visits to Brunei, the Philippines, Russia, Kazakhstan, the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Mexico, North Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Spain, and South Korea.

Premier Wen Jiabao visited India in April and signed an agreement aimed at resolving a long-running dispute over the countries’ shared Himalayan border, a territory that covered some 130,000 sq km (50,000 sq mi). The agreement followed a model of successful resolution between China and Russia over the eastern sector of their border that had been under dispute until 2004. Cooperation between China and Russia continued in 2005 in the form of joint military exercises beginning in August. Although the two states had participated in multilateral military exercises in the past, this was the first time that they had conducted bilateral drills. India also extended an invitation to China for joint military exercises.

Beijing hosted the 2005 Korea-China Economic Conference, aimed at fostering “super economic cooperation in East Asia.” China and Australia launched free-trade negotiations in late May, while China continued to work on a free-trade agreement with New Zealand. China also signed a free-trade agreement with Chile in November.

Joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 had bound China irreversibly in a global supply chain for industrial products. In the wake of its entry into the WTO, China experienced a considerable increase in its textile exports. China and the U.S. concluded protracted negotiations over restrictions on such exports during the year. Trade between China and South Korea surpassed $100 billion in 2005, and robust economic growth in both Russia and China was expected to lead to increased trade between those countries.

Although China became Japan’s number one trading partner, Sino-Japanese relations delved to perhaps their lowest point in 30 years. Early in 2005 Japan approved a set of new middle-school textbooks that in the eyes of many Asians justified and glorified its wartime wrongs. The textbooks offered little or no coverage of Japan’s wartime atrocities. In addition, top Japanese leaders continued to make pilgrimages to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where some two million of Japan’s war dead were honoured, including 14 convicted Class A war criminals linked to atrocities committed during World War II. Mass protests were staged in all major cities in China. In August, as it joined 110 UN member states in blocking Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council, China charged that Japan was not mature enough to take leadership responsibilities in international affairs. Earlier in the year, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura had called China’s criticism of visits to the war shrine “absurd” and accused China of ignoring Japan’s pacifist record.

U.S. Pres. George W. Bush paid a two-day visit to Beijing in November during a multicountry tour that included attendance at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit in Pusan, S.Kor. Although he called for greater human rights in China, Bush struck a generally conciliatory tone during his visit, reiterating the “one-China” policy of the U.S. government and focusing much of his discussions on economic matters. For its part China expressed its commitment to continuing to reform its currency, taking serious measures to crack down on violations of intellectual property rights, and pressuring North Korea to return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks that it had abandoned in February.

Among the Chinese politicians and government officials who died during the year were former vice president Rong Yiren, former mayor of Shanghai Wang Daohan, noted government reformer Ren Zhongyi, and Gang of Four member Yao Wenyuan. Death also claimed one of China’s most famous writers, Ba Jin, prominent journalist and dissident Liu Binyan, and Roman Catholic cleric Zhang Bairen.

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